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and. Conditions. Grammar

1:08

Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, and today

1:10

you're going to hear about an amazing

1:12

wartime effort to get books to soldiers

1:14

on the front during World War II.

1:17

Millions of pocketbooks were delivered giving troops

1:20

a little bit of home and a

1:22

taste for paperbacks that helped change the

1:24

publishing industry. And because

1:26

one of those books was a

1:29

dictionary, I'm here with Peter Sokolowski,

1:31

editor-at-large at Merriam-Webster, a judge

1:33

in the Scripps National Spelling Bee,

1:35

and a State Department specialist who

1:37

travels the world promoting the English language.

1:44

Peter, welcome. It's great to

1:46

see you. And I feel like we're old

1:48

friends by now. It's been a long time.

1:51

We are old friends. And it's the best

1:53

of social media is Grammar Girl to me

1:55

because I came to social media and

1:57

I just thought, well, I have a couple interests. And

2:00

I found my world, you know,

2:02

I found people who have similar interests and who

2:04

do similar kinds of

2:06

work and those kinds of connections have

2:08

been really precious. So thank you for

2:10

that. Yeah, I know. I appreciate

2:12

it. You know, you've given me a tour of the

2:15

East Coast. We went to Scrabble competition together. You brought

2:17

me some of the best chocolate I've ever had in

2:19

my life. So it's

2:21

good to see you here. And today we're

2:23

going to talk about because Memorial Day is

2:25

coming up in the United States. I

2:28

discovered that Merriam Webster had published an

2:30

armed services dictionary and it's this cute

2:32

little thing with this wonderful story. And

2:34

I just want you to tell us

2:37

all about it. Well, you

2:39

know, it's a it's a great story. I'm

2:41

glad you asked because it's one of those

2:43

kind of wartime stories where everybody got together,

2:45

you know, where the country kind of worked

2:48

together. One of the examples that

2:50

we can talk about is during the war,

2:52

you know, Chrysler and Ford competitors, they were

2:54

all making Jeeps and tanks. You know, they

2:56

all went together for the war effort. That

2:59

was also true in publishing in

3:01

book publishing. It turns out it came from

3:03

within the army itself. There was an

3:06

office of the library at the army and

3:08

an officer went once the war started. They

3:11

said, you know, we should have government

3:13

issue GI books. We should send

3:16

books out along with the troops.

3:19

And amazingly, it happened very, very

3:21

quickly. The heads of New York Publishing

3:23

Houses got together and they said,

3:25

this is a good idea and let's see how we

3:27

can make it. And there were

3:29

a couple of obstacles. One was production.

3:32

They had to produce these books very

3:34

quickly. And what they decided to do

3:36

was they wanted a book that would fit inside

3:39

the pockets of the uniform

3:42

army uniform or the Navy uniform. And

3:45

they did the kind of practical thing.

3:47

They said, let's take what we've already

3:49

got, the printing presses that

3:51

were making Reader's Digest. Now, that

3:53

has a very distinct trim

3:56

size. If you can probably imagine it. I know

3:58

it's still in print. It was in print. In

4:00

fact, here at Merriam-Webster, we have some

4:03

of our paper books we refer to as the digest

4:05

trim size. In other words, it's a little bit bigger, a

4:07

little bit taller, a little bit wider and taller

4:14

than a normal mass market paperback.

4:18

Often, it's a little bit thinner. And

4:20

so here at Merriam-Webster, in-house, we say

4:22

a digest to refer to a paperback

4:24

in that trim size. But

4:26

Rude's Digest have these big printing presses. They

4:28

were printing millions of magazines.

4:31

So what happened was they typeset different books

4:33

and there were books for the

4:36

troops. They chose all

4:38

different kinds of titles, ended up being 1,300 titles, a

4:40

huge number of

4:44

books. And among them, just to cite some

4:46

examples, The Grapes of Wrath,

4:48

Tom Sawyer, Tuck Finn, The

4:51

Mysteries of Adethochristy, A Tree Grows in

4:53

Brooklyn. So they were not

4:55

just classics, but contemporary works. They were

4:57

pretty careful to keep things away from

5:00

politics, kind of understandably. They

5:02

said nothing that's going to create an

5:04

argument in the field. And

5:06

so they said classics that included Shakespeare,

5:08

that included some of the great myths

5:11

as well. But then

5:13

they also said, let's make a dictionary.

5:16

And they came to Merriam-Webster. And

5:18

so just to continue with the Reader's Digest thing, what

5:21

they decided to do was they would typeset the book

5:23

twice. They doubled it. In other words, they

5:26

would typeset a page exactly

5:28

the same above and below, and then run

5:31

the printing press and then cut the book

5:33

in half. And that meant

5:35

that you produced two books for every one that you

5:37

printed. So were they, I'm sorry,

5:39

were they half the size of essentially a Reader's Digest?

5:41

Is that how that worked? Exactly. So if

5:43

you think of a Reader's Digest, cut it in

5:45

half horizontally and you get one of

5:48

these on-services editions. Oh.

5:50

Yeah. And so in fact, I

5:52

have one in my hand here and you can show

5:54

it to you online and you can see that there

5:56

is, this would have been the size of a Reader's

5:58

Digest. And that a lot, of course. efficiency was

6:00

obvious. You're making two books for one.

6:02

But also, it's really short. It's really

6:05

short. But it was printed across still

6:07

horizontally. So across the page. And

6:09

in the case of this dictionary, three columns,

6:11

and what they did for novels, they would,

6:13

I'm sorry, let's describe that so people can

6:16

see. So it's got a blue cover. And

6:18

it, it reminds me of like a reporter's

6:20

notebook, the size, but on its side. So

6:22

it's long and short. You know, what's

6:25

interesting is it's almost exactly the trim size

6:27

of a smartphone when you think about it.

6:29

Oh my gosh, you're right a little bit

6:31

it's the exact height of my smartphone

6:34

and maybe a centimeter wider. And

6:36

what's interesting also, I've

6:39

been looking at older dictionaries. And by that I

6:41

mean from the early 1600s. And

6:44

they were often this size

6:47

also, usually, usually vertically. In

6:49

other words, it's amazing how small books often

6:52

used to be, especially dictionaries, which we think

6:54

of as huge books, you know, really, really

6:56

big books. This particular one is in three

6:58

columns, and the columns are separated by little

7:00

vertical lines. And that just to kind of

7:02

help the reader. I do

7:05

know that for the novels that they printed, they

7:07

did print them in two columns on the page

7:09

so that you wouldn't read across a very wide

7:11

page. And then your eye go back. And they

7:13

found it was easier to read in kind of

7:15

in columns. So they would print those novels in

7:17

columns. But to give a little

7:20

bit more background about the Merriam-Webster involvement, Merriam-Webster

7:22

had created a little tiny dictionary beginning

7:24

in 1877. I have one right here.

7:26

It was called Webster's Handy

7:31

Dictionary. So

7:34

handy. Webster's Handy. And it's

7:36

not much bigger than the Arm Services

7:38

edition. And it's a cute

7:40

little book, and it became a huge success.

7:42

And so it was reproduced. This

7:45

one's called, I don't know if you can

7:47

see it, it says Webster's New Handy. And

7:50

in fact, this is the one that was used

7:52

for the Arm Services edition. So they took this,

7:55

and they did one other thing, which

7:58

I think is really amazing. It just

8:00

kind of brings that moment in time

8:02

to us, which is they added new

8:04

words to the beginning of the dictionary

8:07

That the newly added words to the

8:09

beginning of the dictionary and this list

8:11

of words is unbelievable I'm

8:13

just gonna read a few of them. These are new words

8:15

added in the 1943 edition They

8:19

included airlock bliss krieg

8:21

bomb site commando concentration

8:24

camp fascism flying

8:27

fortress foxhole Gestapo

8:31

isolationist Nazi Quizzling

8:34

submachine gun task force and

8:37

walkie-talkie So

8:39

those words really speak to the moment

8:41

and I knew that the word fascism

8:43

for example was used in Merriam Webster

8:45

print advertisements in the late

8:47

1930s you could

8:49

get the Atlantic magazine and Someone sent

8:52

me an old copy of that magazine because

8:54

it had this advertisement in it and

8:56

it was a photograph very 1930s black

8:58

and white of kind of a couple

9:01

at home and it was sort of

9:03

darling what does fascism mean and And

9:06

then said oh, you know pick up your new

9:08

copy of you know Webster's collegiate dictionary And

9:10

the fact is in 1936 or 37 at

9:12

that time fascism was being reported

9:15

as the political party of Mussolini's

9:17

Italy so it was a word that

9:19

was appearing in newspapers in America in

9:22

just news reports of European news It wasn't

9:24

yet You know a

9:26

wartime kind of footing, but it was a word

9:28

that people had trouble with It was a brand

9:30

new word in the language And so then as

9:32

now as you know, we release new words a

9:34

few times a year and we announced them It's

9:36

exactly the same we've been doing it forever But

9:38

it's interesting to me that they

9:41

thought you know what having 10 or

9:43

a dozen pages of these new words

9:45

at the beginning of The dictionary will

9:47

also kind of underscore why we're fighting,

9:49

you know, in other words, yeah patriotic

9:51

effort. I Imagine they you

9:53

know, they got the books and they opened them up and

9:55

they could immediately tell like this was made for us Yeah,

9:58

absolutely and you know What's

10:00

kind of moving to me is that

10:02

these were designed to be passed on.

10:05

You'd read your book and hand it

10:07

to another soldier. What they

10:09

found in the case of this particular

10:11

printing was that they weren't being passed

10:13

on. The soldiers kept

10:15

them. And so the Armed Services,

10:18

Merriam-Webster dictionary was the only one

10:20

that was reprinted immediately. And

10:22

they made many of them. I don't know what the

10:24

numbers are. They may be as many as a million

10:26

that were printed. But it was

10:28

certainly in the high six figures. And

10:31

so these soldiers and many of them came back and

10:33

said, you know, they went to the GI Bill, they

10:35

went to college, they did, you know, their lives were

10:37

changed. And in fact, one thing that's interesting in an

10:39

article I found online about these books

10:41

is an incredibly kind of

10:44

prescient reflection by W.W. Norton

10:46

himself, the actual founder of

10:48

the publishing house, Norton Books.

10:52

And here's his quote. He said, the very

10:54

fact that millions of men will

10:56

have an opportunity to learn what

10:58

a book is and what it

11:00

can mean is likely now and

11:02

in post-war years to exert a

11:04

tremendous influence on the post-war

11:07

course of industry. And

11:09

boy, was he right, because the fact is

11:12

paperback books did exist just before

11:14

the war. You're probably

11:16

familiar with penguin books, penguin classes. They sort

11:18

of invented the category in the mid 1930s.

11:22

And right at the end of the 30s, 1939 in

11:25

America, they copied the penguin books, pocket

11:28

books, you probably remember like the little kangaroo with

11:30

the logo. Those are the

11:32

original paperback books. And then right

11:34

after the war, Merriam Webster in

11:36

1947, after the success of the

11:38

Armed Services Edition, we produced

11:40

the first mass market dictionary, 1947. And

11:44

it was originally sold for 25 cents. And

11:48

it is still in print today. Of

11:50

course, an updated version. And

11:52

I think it's $6.50 today. But

11:55

it's our best selling dictionary. Not only that,

11:57

it's the best selling reference work of any

11:59

kind. in the United States. So

12:01

I like to think that our

12:03

kind of principal product, it's just

12:06

our mass market red paperback dictionary,

12:08

really in many ways comes out

12:10

of this wartime exercise.

12:13

That's amazing. Yeah. So are these

12:15

armed services dictionaries, are they,

12:19

so many of them were printed, are they easy

12:21

to find now or are they collector's items? Like

12:23

how can, how hard does it take it?

12:25

No, they're very hard to find. And in

12:27

fact, in the office, I have a little

12:29

stack of them in mint condition because they

12:31

were simply left alone. As you know, with

12:33

paper, things wear off. And that,

12:36

you know, reading about the armed services

12:38

edition, there

12:40

were a number of things that the publishers

12:42

in New York wanted to ensure. They didn't

12:44

want to interfere with their own sales later.

12:47

They did not publish textbooks or information

12:49

or like manuals from medicine, or, you

12:51

know, that kind of stuff was limited

12:53

to if there were, for example, a

12:55

field medicine manual had to be published

12:57

by the military, you know,

12:59

they had to make it for themselves

13:02

and issue that. And also the authors

13:04

and publishers received one penny per copy.

13:07

And so this was a case where the

13:09

American publishing industry had a single customer, the

13:11

United States government, and they bought everything that was

13:13

printed and then delivered them. But that was still

13:16

pretty good for everybody. In other words, the publisher

13:18

would get one penny, the author would get one

13:20

penny. So two cents each, I believe for each

13:22

of these. But the thing is,

13:24

they were also sort of designed to fall

13:26

apart. I mean, they were designed, they were

13:28

designed with very inexpensive paper with simple paper

13:31

covers. And it was understood by everyone that

13:33

they were unlikely to survive in large numbers.

13:35

And therefore, again, to compete with anything that

13:37

they would try to, they didn't want, for

13:39

example, to have a warehouse full of these

13:42

at the end of the war that someone would

13:44

sell and dump at a loss. But that means

13:46

the publishers would now Lose revenue

13:48

on their own titles. And So they kind of

13:50

calculated these very simply. They Began with print runs

13:53

of, I believe, 30,000. And Then they went up

13:55

to 50,000. And Then they went up to 150,000.

14:00

That would be found was volume was important

14:02

but know very few survive. You can look

14:04

on E Bay. They're not intrinsically super valuable,

14:06

but I think if you were to have

14:08

a solid collection of what for example is

14:10

known as the Dj this and because there

14:12

were certain I'm a print run of a

14:14

dozen tiles are so that were. Issued.

14:17

To those soldiers just before the day

14:19

and so they all were carrying the

14:21

same books. So I bet if you

14:23

had a myth condition collection of that

14:25

short run of of twenty or thirty

14:27

titles, that might be something that a

14:29

collector would find valuable. You can find

14:31

armed groups of these on E Bay

14:33

in the hundreds of dollars, so they're

14:35

not. You know they're not intrinsically very

14:37

valuable books, but if you have them

14:39

in good condition, on for the right

14:41

collector and especially collector for example, who

14:43

collects uniforms or military paraphernalia from a

14:45

certain unit and knows of. That unit was

14:47

issued that book. You. Know so so

14:49

there may be that kind of a precision.

14:52

and the other thing I can show

14:54

is a hard cover version of exactly the

14:56

type that are Armed Services Addition on This

14:58

is the exact same wordless with the same

15:00

new words at the beginning. On is

15:03

it says in the front it's copyright Nineteen

15:05

Forty Three This surprises me because apparently this

15:07

was produced and Nineteen Forty three. But yeah

15:09

the reason surprises me as I am

15:11

A because most production stopped during the war.

15:14

If there were there was no metal, there

15:16

was no or leather, there was no paper.

15:19

And I actually once I i I

15:21

don't have it with me. I found

15:23

a memo. A monthly report from Nineteen

15:25

Forty Three internal report That good as all

15:27

reports do. you know here's sales from last

15:29

month, years editorial progress on the new edition,

15:31

and by the way, we have run out

15:33

of paper. No more dictionaries will be pressed

15:35

by Merriam Webster because of the War effort.

15:37

And it was written with a kind of

15:39

pride that the fact that you know I

15:41

mean we have done all we can. And

15:43

so there was. as. as you probably know,

15:46

if you ever think about this, there are

15:48

no cars from Nineteen Forty Three. And I

15:50

can Forty Four in America. You know. Ah,

15:52

there's no, there's no such things and I

15:54

can forty Four Seventy or something like that

15:56

because everything went to the war effort and

15:58

as to for Merriam Webster decks. Well.

16:01

Our because the industrial process you know

16:03

it will it and took a lot

16:05

so I admit we did print some

16:07

of these are small paperback civilian edition

16:09

of the Armed Services one and that's

16:11

where publishing stop for number of years.

16:14

Wonderful! I just imagine their the

16:16

soldiers on their friend seen as sitting

16:18

there may be with their flashlights that

16:21

the dictionary you know at at night

16:23

and an unwinding meeting meeting definitions in

16:25

you know what's interesting. Is it's own

16:28

They're referred to in letters Home. They.

16:30

Make appearances in movies in Band of Brothers, There's

16:32

a scene in which one of the soldiers is

16:34

is reading and kind of arguing with another soldier

16:37

in a foxhole. But it's a moment when he

16:39

was reading so was kind of a com moment

16:41

kind of a quiet moments and you saw him

16:43

reading a i believe it was a Tree Grows

16:46

in Brooklyn you know, which is a very popular

16:48

or novel in the forties. Ah, and know that

16:50

it is, it's depicted. But also one of the

16:52

accounts refer to these additions as a few square

16:55

inches of home. And. And

16:57

that was they got. Even if they didn't

16:59

get mail that day or they didn't get

17:01

a care package on, they might have gotten

17:04

issued the news batch of Armed Services addition

17:06

that were brought to the front because they

17:08

were everywhere in the war there. in the

17:10

Navy, in the Army, the Pacific, in the

17:12

Atlantic, they were just incredibly well distributed. It's

17:15

an example of America doing something really really

17:17

well. Yeah. I mean legend

17:19

is getting. getting them to the people must have been a

17:21

challenge. Exactly. And actually that was funny. I

17:23

did read at one point they actually made

17:25

criteria they said they would said because there

17:28

was sent out in kind of batches so

17:30

that you would get back switch them one

17:32

or two copies of each. From that that

17:35

and a said okay we'll send this batch

17:37

to every unit of one hundred and fifty

17:39

men that was on active duty, but they

17:41

would send a one back to every sixty

17:44

men in a field hospital. Or in

17:46

other words, they were going to have more time

17:48

to read and so they gave him three times as

17:50

many books and then they would also send one

17:52

full backs to any advance unit. I'm.

17:54

no matter how big it was i'm i've been twelve men

17:56

in my and twelve hundred men but they would make sure

17:58

that to the forward units they would also get some.

18:00

And of course, who knows if they all got

18:02

to the right place. But I

18:04

do think it's amazing to think that, you

18:07

know, reading just exactly as Norton said, you

18:09

know, reading in those moments was probably very

18:11

important because you're connecting with your culture. Yeah,

18:16

great. Well, we're gonna take a quick ad

18:18

break. But when we come back, we're actually

18:20

going to talk about the spelling bee because

18:22

Peter is also starting on Tuesday going to

18:25

be judging the Scripps National Spelling Bee. So

18:27

we'll be right back. When

18:32

I grow up, I'm going to

18:34

be a veg-carr- veterinarian. That's awesome.

18:36

And I'm going to be what you

18:38

said we need more of. So you

18:40

want to be a plumber-narian. Do you

18:43

think I can? I

18:45

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and conditions. Welcome

20:54

back. So this

20:56

show comes out on Thursday and on

20:58

Tuesday May 28th just in a

21:00

few days the Scripps National Spelling Bee starts.

21:02

Peter is a judge and you

21:04

know I'm looking for the inside scoop on the

21:06

spelling bee Peter. You mentioned during

21:08

the break that the you think the pronounceer

21:10

is a very important role. Tell me more about

21:12

that. Absolutely and many of you

21:15

will have seen the the pronounceer his

21:17

name is Jacques Bailey, Dr. Jacques Bailey.

21:19

He's a professor of classics of Greek

21:21

and Latin literature at the University of

21:23

Vermont. Also, by the way, he won

21:25

the National Spelling Bee when he was 14 years old. Back

21:29

in whatever it was 1982 or something and

21:32

he is kind of the perfect example

21:34

of what a pronounceer should be and what I mean

21:37

by that is the semiotics of

21:39

the situation look adversarial. What you know,

21:41

it looks like it's the student against

21:43

the pronounceer but in fact it's the

21:45

pronounceer who is helping the speller

21:47

and he provides as much information as

21:49

the dictionary can provide which is to

21:51

say the the customary pronunciation often with

21:54

a variation so he will say the

21:56

word sometimes two sometimes three different ways

21:58

or even more occasionally. but

22:00

he will give the etymology, he will give

22:03

the example sentence, sometimes a couple of example

22:05

sentences, and of course he'll give the definition.

22:07

And he will provide that information as many

22:09

times as the speller asks for it. And

22:11

so he's there to help

22:14

and also what he does is he responds

22:16

and engages with the speller. So one of

22:18

the things that you'll notice for really competitive

22:20

spellers is they repeat the word immediately. So

22:22

if the word is sesquipedalian, then the speller

22:25

will say sesquipedalian may have the definition. In

22:27

other words, they'll say it out loud. And

22:29

that's actually a really really good habit

22:31

for competitive spelling because if

22:34

the speller speaks the word and the

22:36

judges or the pronounceer don't hear it

22:38

exactly the way he said it, we

22:41

will encourage them to say it again. Now we're

22:43

not coaching them, but we will

22:45

ask the speller, could you repeat the word again?

22:47

And then we'll say could you listen to the

22:49

pronounceer again? Could you listen? And I remember one

22:51

time it was there was a problem with

22:53

the speller's understanding. I believe it was

22:55

a nasalized vowel, like a

22:58

French sounding N for example. So give

23:00

me an example. Oh like any word

23:02

in English that ends in E-N-T or

23:04

A-N-T is a word that ultimately came from

23:06

French. You know there are words that we

23:08

have like croissant that we do kind of

23:10

pronounce with that nasalized M and

23:12

this was I forget what the word was but it was

23:14

like that where the end of the word was kind of

23:17

E-N or A-M or A-N-T

23:20

croissant and he said it

23:22

now Jack Bailey he has a French founding name

23:24

he speaks French his parents are from French Switzerland

23:26

I think and he said

23:28

it probably 35 times for that speller

23:30

said it exactly the same way and

23:32

I'm just using croissant and of course

23:35

that is not a sound that

23:37

is in English phonotactics it is not

23:39

part of English sound however we do

23:41

show in our phonetic transcriptions in

23:43

the dictionary and you can see that with

23:46

the little N as a superscript and when

23:48

you see that in a Merriam Webster dictionary

23:50

that means that it's a nasalized M not

23:52

a pronounced M so you wouldn't be croissant

23:55

it's croissant And so

23:57

ultimately he said come to the

23:59

front. The stage because they were maybe ten feet

24:01

apart and to the spell it left a microphone

24:03

a walked up for see to the edges any

24:05

said look at my mouth. Ah

24:08

yeah, against not coaching, but just we

24:10

is if the seller can't reproduce the

24:12

sound of the word, it's very likely

24:14

that they will miss spell the word.

24:16

Know that so that I thought a

24:18

very good example of really professional pronouncing

24:20

arms and another a way that this

24:22

is expressed. His when that speller asked

24:24

for information about the history of a

24:26

word, they may ask for something that's

24:28

too specific enough or something that is

24:30

not noted in the etymology itself. We

24:32

limit ourselves to what is given in

24:35

the etymology, so they will often say

24:37

is this. Word from Greek or is

24:39

this word from French set an easy

24:41

yes You know that yeah yes up

24:43

again they might say if the word

24:45

and for example in A T T

24:47

E. The. Speller My Aca question

24:49

like is part of this word from

24:51

the French diminutive asic title form. And

24:54

now that's going into detail about morphology

24:56

and spelling. And in fact that etymology

24:58

and an English language dictionary will often

25:00

just say this word comes from French.

25:03

In others we don't make down the

25:05

friends, we don't etymology, the friends, we

25:07

animals are the English and so in

25:09

that instance you will hear are pronounced

25:11

or respond with something like. I

25:13

don't see that here. As what

25:15

we don't wanna do is a habit

25:17

situation where one's fellow gets more information

25:19

than another speller because the next spell

25:21

a word may not have such a

25:23

compound part that you can break down

25:25

that way. that gives you a clue.

25:27

In other words, if you had a

25:29

word like clarinet say you might not

25:31

know there is a word. Clerics the

25:33

ends in city. As. A kind of

25:35

life and but if you just speak the

25:37

word it sounds like clarinet and so that

25:40

the skeletons the hey is this have the

25:42

feminine diminutive ending and if you said yes

25:44

now that our knows this word and and

25:46

T V as opposed to eat he right

25:48

And so the fact is we try to

25:51

keep it fair by only reporting what is

25:53

given in print in the etymology in the

25:55

dictionary and against just reiterate the point we

25:57

and entering west or we etymology I see.

26:00

Wish we don't etymology hours the animal care if

26:02

we think is worse and some sense you don't

26:04

go back for a while. The French word came

26:06

from latin which took it from Greek in other

26:08

it because that going down another rabbit hole and

26:11

it's all valid. It's just that we have some

26:13

point we have to put a stop to the

26:15

exercise. You know we have to basically say if

26:17

we can only provide was in print in the

26:19

Merriam Webster unabridged Dictionary, the official dictionary of the

26:22

National Spelling Bee and we're going do the same

26:24

for every single speller and back to keep it

26:26

fair to in order to be fun it has

26:28

to be fair. To reason that

26:30

the kids they when they make that level they

26:33

know that if they here I don't see that

26:35

hear it means a very specific thing. Yet another

26:37

mean it's not true. It's right that that they

26:39

can't say. Nothing can. Often they will take

26:41

it as a confirmation but the other thing

26:44

that you'll see is that they lose no

26:46

time. You know once they hear that they

26:48

just move on that they'll ask another question

26:50

because these at that level they are so

26:52

well rehearsed in there, so well studied I'm

26:54

and honestly the yeah my favorite moments of

26:57

the be or toward the end whereas the

26:59

final you will get an obscure words and

27:01

spell it will say you know, does this

27:03

come from the Arabic word meaning and elephant

27:05

used for carrying thirty. Soldiers.

27:08

And you'll just just marvel at the

27:10

specificity of the knowledge of that speller.

27:12

And that's why it's the Olympics of

27:14

Language you know. Any of it goes

27:17

way beyond what anyone would need or

27:19

are really what most people know. and

27:21

I really celebrate the the Champions because

27:23

they are just at the next level

27:26

of knowledge and way beyond. I mean

27:28

I'd I'd personally have never known my

27:30

spelling or etymology as well as these

27:33

spells do. It must be

27:35

such a joy to hang out with as kids like

27:37

what are some of your favorite experience and. Will you

27:39

know what is a nice things now? They've

27:41

been doing this since two thousand and eight

27:43

being part of the be on giving lectures

27:45

and representing the dictionary and now on the

27:47

word panel. the group of people who choose

27:49

the words for the next be several of

27:51

the members of the panel our past winners

27:53

and either spellers who I gave the trophy

27:55

to ah I've visited the you're A you

27:57

know the award to in when they were.

28:00

Thirteen or fourteen or fifteen years old and now

28:02

they are in grad school or they are in

28:04

their young careers And three or four them are

28:06

on the word panel and I just love working

28:08

with these. The end of course, really of beyond

28:11

belief. Gas. And they don't

28:13

know? Do you know where people can watch to

28:15

be? I know some has it's hinges. That's right

28:17

arm is the last couple years it's on

28:19

I on ion I O n which is

28:22

the script so television network. And.

28:24

That is of untold available nationwide and

28:26

it often comes in your package on

28:29

with whatever digital subscription you have on.

28:31

This might be one of those three

28:33

channels and sets of look for that

28:35

and also I'm pretty sure you can

28:38

stream it as well. The final is

28:40

Thursday nights a be weak as always

28:42

but there will be the preliminaries and

28:44

on the second rounds through on Tuesday.

28:46

all day. We're going to be spelling

28:49

I believe from eight am to seven

28:51

Pm on Tuesday. Tackling a big group

28:53

of scholars. Ah and so we're

28:55

going to be spelling and then on Wednesday

28:57

will have the quarter finals and will get

29:00

down to the semifinals on Wednesday in the

29:02

afternoon and then once the spellers get down

29:04

to about twelve or fifteen that's when they

29:07

stop the competition and they say will finish

29:09

this live on Tv for the fines. Amazing

29:12

lessons intense on the theaters that the

29:14

Lasky thank you so much for being

29:16

here! Editor at large it Merriam Webster

29:18

judge for the Scripts National Spelling Bee

29:21

and we really appreciate hearing about the

29:23

Armed Services addition in the dictionary and

29:25

the be think celebs. Great to see you

29:27

Happy Memorial Day! And

29:32

hope you enjoyed the South. I'll be

29:34

that Tuesday with a regular episode about

29:37

a question both philosophical and. Practical?

29:39

What is a word?

29:42

And then make. Sure to check your feet again

29:44

Thursday for our next installment of Grammar

29:46

Girl conversations. When I'll be talking

29:48

with Paul Anthony Jones about why English

29:50

doesn't have gender. Anymore which languages

29:53

are the hardest to learn?

29:55

And why the strange story of

29:57

how we got the letter Q

29:59

and me from his work? Why

30:01

is this a question? That's all.

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Thanks for listening. When

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A veterinarian? So awesome.

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And I'm going to be what you said. We need

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a plumber? Marion in I

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Can. I think that if you

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on having them over for dinner with free

30:48

delivery with no hidden fees or markups. That's

30:50

groceries plus napkins plus that vegetable chopper to

30:52

make things a bit easier. Plus members save

30:54

on gas to go meet them in their

30:56

neck of the woods. Plus when you're ready

30:58

for the ultimate sign of friendship, start a

31:00

show together with your included Paramount Plus subscription.

31:02

Walmart Plus members save on this plus so

31:05

much more. Start a 30 day free trial

31:07

at walmartplus.com. Paramount Plus is

31:09

central plan only. Separate registration required. See Walmart Plus terms

31:11

and conditions.